Reliable Collections

[megan10]

Hi

This is my first post here so I apologise if this has been discussed beforebut I couldn’t find it.

I am wondering if someone could help me with the problems I have been havingwith Reliable Collections acting on behalf of Simply Be and Naturally Close. Iwill try and cut this story down to as short as possible but basically about 9years ago I ordered goods from these companies (they are both owned by the samecompany) the quality of the items were shocking to say the least and they weresent back (same address used for both as it appears the warehouse was the same)They disputed the return and requested that I sent in proof of posting etcwhich I did. They then disputed ever having received the proof of posting and Iwas an idiot and didn’t take a copy. I told them I wasn’t going to pay and theypassed it over to Reliable Collections, for the first 4 times it was passedback and forth between the shopping group and Reliable Collections. They simplywould not help me and ignored all of my letters and emails. I then hit uponhard times, I was made redundant, became ill through stress and worry and wentinto debt consolidation. At this point I decided to pay them rather than makemyself more ill by fighting what appeared to be a loosing battle. Reliable Collectionsset up a payment plan for both accounts, I will be honest and say that I missedallot of the payments because I was so loathed to give them money for items Ino longer had. Each time I missed a payment they placed a charge of around £12on the account. This went on and on and last year Reliable Collections uppedtheir game in relation to the Simply Be account, the hounded me with callsnight and day, wrote approximately 4 letters a week, sent text messages, calledfrom withheld and mobile numbers, hounded me at work and sent emails. I wroteto the head office with evidence of their harassment and they immediatelyunderwrote the debt with a long letter of apology and sent an amendment to thecredit reference agency effectively deleting the account from my file. I am nowtrying to have the last £120 underwritten from the Naturally Close account asone of their advisors told me that I have paid over £1000 for goods that were originallyfor less than £90. He advised me not to pay anything else and put the accountinto dispute. I think that they will clear this remaining amount but what iwould like to do is claim back all the charges that I paid which I think willrun to over £2000. I feel very aggrieved by this situation, I really shouldn’thave let it go on so long but I wasn’t really aware of consumer law beforestarting to read sites like these. I would really appreciate any advice abouthow to get some money back off them and if you think it is worth pursuing etc.

[ims21]

Thread moved

[zydeco]

Hi Megan and welcome.

more knowledgeable people will be along shortly but in the meantime yes you can get your money back.

If you have paid 1k/2k for goods that were worth £90 then they owe you a lot of money, especially when you include the interest.

 

I think you need to send a data Subject Access Request (known as a sar) to the catalogue company to find out what unlawful charges they have added to this account to bump up the "alleged" debt to this amount.

[megan10]

Hi Zydeco, thank you so much for your reply. I will be sending an SAR tomorrow, hopefully this will confirm how much I have paid them.

Thanks again

Megan

[Bazooka Boo]

Yes I agree, a SAR to the catalogue company (cost £10) to get sight of all of the charges they added to the account, then you will have a figure to demand from them to repay you, including interest.